Final Crisis #1 Review

The Final Crisis begins...

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Like any DC mega-event with the word "Crisis" in its title, the first installment of Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones' Final Crisis follows a lot of boastful promises of the "reinvent the wheel" and "nothing will every be the same again" varieties. And like the first issue of all highly anticipated and endlessly promoted miniseries, it's also a tough nut to crack when it comes to calling it a success or a failure. In essence, Morrison and Jones start the ball rolling, briefly establish (or reestablish) the threads and storylines that'll play a central role in things to come, throw in a shocking murder and then leave us on a slightly ambiguous cliffhanger that never the less leaves us wanting more.

Is my mind thoroughly blown? No, but it takes quite a lot for any superhero book to accomplish such a feat these days. The more important question should be whether I was simultaneously entertained and intrigued, and the answer to that is a resounding yes. Morrison and Jones have spun an insanely ambitious and very gripping yarn that pulses with the appropriate sense of foreboding, one that's marked by an extremely expansive and impressive scope.

Scope. That word popped into my mind more than a few times while reading this issue. In typical fashion, Morrison seems to be building his story with a reach that's as massive and expansive as the DC Universe (and some would say even time) itself. As promised, the issue opens on Anthro, the first boy on Earth, and ends on Kamandi, the last. This opening scene shares more than a few similarities with the "Dawn of Man" sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which many would agree is perhaps the most ambitious piece of popular narrative storytelling of the modern era.

The impact of this scene is twofold:first, with the obvious parallels to the aforementioned iconic film sequence, Morrison and Jones remind us that they're literally attempting to explore and perhaps reinvent the DCU from the ground up; second, the pulse-pounding, savage scene (which sees the immortal and aptly named Vandal Savage lead a clan of prehistoric humans against Anthro's seemingly more benevolent tribe) reminds us that we're likely about to witness a more clear cut case of good vs. evil than we've seen in a long time. It's a fantastic opening, and just the first of many scenes that artist J.G. Jones outdoes his previous interior work and showcases his impeccable sense of visual design.

In another parallel to 2001, Morrison and Jones jumps tens of thousands of years from one of man's earliest fires to the lit cigarette of Dan "Terrible" Turpin (a fantastic Kirby creation that has been away far, far too long), and from there, things begin to proceed in a more conventional fashion, with Morrison planting different plot seeds around the DC Universe (most having to do with the mysterious new state of the New Gods). Surprisingly, much about this first issue reminded me of a more coherent version of DC Universe Zero in that there's definitely some connection between the various snapshots of the DCU that Morrison and Jones provide, but it's not tangible enough to grab a firm hold of. This heightens the overall mysterious and foreboding tone of the issue, but doesn't help establish the essence of the series' central story.

In this reviewer's opinion, there were only really three truly problematic elements of this issue:

1) No matter how you spin it (and the whole Libra angle definitely has me intrigued), both the visual - and the basic idea - of DC's biggest super-villains standing in a room together is just plain stale and overused. I'm just tired of the Secret Society of Super Villains in all its forms.

2) Regardless of their best efforts, Morrison and Jones are still unable to fumigate the stink of Countdown from this issue's pages. It's absolutely impossible to look at a late-issue sequence of the Monitors without shuddering a bit inside at the thought of that yearlong disaster of a series.

And 3) the unceremonious death of a JLA mainstay that was telegraphed so clumsily in last week's issue of Justice League reeks of the type of "kill a hero to make a bad guy more legitimately menacing" gimmick that's below a storyteller like Morrison. (I'm willing to cut him more slack on the first and last complaints, because this wouldn't be the first time he's turned a tired convention on its head to shine a new light on it).

Those complaints aside, Final Crisis #1 is an engrossing read and an absolutely stunning visual experience. With this issue, Jones steps right alongside Frank Quitely and J.H. Williams as the only artists capable of going step for step – and perhaps even surpass – Morrison's endlessly manic imagination. At the very least, this is one of the best-looking mainstream comic books you're likely to encounter.